Sunday, April 29, 2012

"Mad Men," Season 5, Episode 7, "At the Codfish Ball"

Last
night’s “Man Men” episode did not really introduce any new historical events,
but reiterates themes from the first six episodes of the season. “At the
Codfish Ball” continues to reveal the growing liberalization of American
culture during the Age of Aquarius.

Like prominent
musicians of the 1960s such as the Beach Boys and the Beatles, Roger Sterling
feels inspired by the LSD trip he had in last week’s episode. Rather than
simply drinking and going through the motions as usual, Sterling is embarrassed
that his wealthy family handed everything to him on a silver platter and now wants
to earn his keep at the firm. His first
wife tells him not to be apologetic about his advantages and that she’s “not
going to let a bunch of dirty teenagers in the paper disrupt the order of
things.” Her comment is an obvious
reference to the anti-establishment rhetoric of the youth culture.

After Abe
insists Peggy meet him for an important dinner, Joan suspects he will propose.
In a twist, though, Abe suggests they move in together. Though she agrees, Peggy appears disappointed he didn’t ask her to marry him. While such arrangements are common today, it was rare for
unmarried people to live together in the mid-1960s, even in liberal New York City.
Peggy’s Catholic mother is extremely unhappy with the new state of
affairs, declaring they will be “living in sin” and that Abe is just interested
in sex. Even a decade later in 1976,
“Three’s Company,” a television show that depicted a man living with two women
he wasn’t sleeping with, sparked controversy when it premiered.

Upset
over her mother’s disapproval, Peggy sarcastically says that she thought her mom
would be “relieved I wasn’t marrying the Jew.”
Though her mother claims that religion isn’t the issue, intermarriage between
Jews and Catholics was very rare in the mid-1960s. In fact, it was uncommon for Jews to marry
outside their faith until the 1970s.

The show
continues to become more open about sexuality as the decade progresses. Last week, we saw Peggy service a total stranger
at a movie theater. This week, poor
Sally walks in on Roger being serviced by Megan’s mom! Speaking of which, I should have mentioned earlier
that we meet Megan’s parents.
Shockingly, they are yet another unhappy married couple.

Megan has
a professional breakthrough this week as she solves the persistent problem of
the Heinz account. Her idea is to
produce an ad that shows families eating beans throughout history, culminating
with one having them for dinner on a lunar colony. Heinz loves the idea because in 1966, as the
moon race launched by JFK continued, it seemed perfectly reasonable to suppose that
people would eventually live on the lunar surface. Believe it or not, Newt
Gingrich wasn’t the first to suggest it.
See http://popculturemeetshistory.blogspot.com/2012/03/50th-anniversary-of-john-glenns-flight.html.

Smoking remains
a point of contention as Don accepts an award from the American Cancer Society
for writing a letter denouncing the tobacco companies in last season’s episode,
“Blowing Smoke.” Megan has reproached
Don for his smoking on a couple of occasions this season, which Betty, a smoker
herself, never did. Still, Ken mentions
that new tobacco labeling legislation doesn’t dramatically affect the industry
and we see several people puffing at the cancer society dinner!

While “At
the Codfish Ball” doesn’t have as many historical references, it was fun and
entertaining. Roger is back in form and
Megan appears unhappy with advertising, despite her obvious talent for it. It will be interesting to see how these
characters evolve throughout the remainder of the season.